


One Foot in the Grave

by shealynn88



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 08:54:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5450747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shealynn88/pseuds/shealynn88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What <i>I am isn't really something I have control over.  But</i> who <i>I am...what if that's changed, too?  What if I really am not the same old Liv under different circumstances, but a totally new Liv, made up of parts of the old me and parts of the brains I eat?</i></p><p>Takes place after S1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Foot in the Grave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lady_ragnell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/gifts).



> Depression and suicidal thoughts depicted here may be triggering for some readers.

Liv Moore. Add an E, remove an O, what have you got? Live more. The irony is not lost on me. 

I'm alone out here. There are other zombies, but I can't trust them. Not knowing most of them are still under Blaine's thumb. And much as I want to keep my ties to my old life, it's becoming pretty clear that, as careful as I am, I'll lose people. Just by being what I am. Maybe even _who_ I am, now. The distinction is small, but important. _What_ I am isn't really something I have control over. But _who_ I am...what if that's changed, too? What if I really am not the same old Liv under different circumstances, but a totally new Liv, made up of parts of the old me and parts of the brains I eat? Sometimes I'm not sure how much of _me_ is really left.

Ravi asked me once if I remembered who I was, and I laughed it off. Snark is really great for deflection.

“I know it's challenging,” he'd said. “Especially not being able to tell anyone. But Liv, whoever you were then, I know you now. You're a good person and a good friend. Circumstances as they are, I for one, am glad you've got my back. And I hope you know, I have yours.” He'd flashed that sarcastic grin. “Even when you are pissed on brains.”

I'd been thinking about that more and more, lately. _What_ I was had certainly turned out to be too much for everyone in my former life. _Who_ I was...I wasn't sure how much that had contributed. But sometimes I thought about what Ravi had said – a good person, and a good friend.

Sometimes it made me feel better.

Most of time, it made me feel worse.

* * *

Ravi was two hours late when I finally got the voicemail. You'd think he'd know to call my cell, but he'd left it on the machine at the morgue. It's a miracle I thought to check it, honestly, but I still has remnants of OCD from my last meal, which saved me from calling Clive and starting a manhunt. Who says eating brains is all bad?

 _"I have to be out for a bit,"_ he said, and he sounded hurried and potentially alarmed. I don't think I'd ever heard him alarmed before. _"I...there's something with my dad, I'll let you know when I know more but just...Liv. Hold it together until I get back. I'll try to get you some help. Liv..._ " he trailed off. " _Don't forget to feed New Hope. I'll...I'm sure I'll see you soon._ "

I sat down. So, Ravi, who greeted my zombieism with something that vacillated between unflappable and gleeful, was alarmed by something and it was very far away, and he needed me to keep it together. Me, I knew he meant - keep me together. Try not to think about how my boyfriend was murdered, my ex-fiance wasn't speaking to me, my best friend was so horrified by me that she'd left town and left no forwarding address, not to mention my family... So, yeah. I'd just keep it together. No problem. Keep an eye on the dead people. Weigh some livers, eat some brains...stay out of trouble. Feed the rat.

No problem.

I realized I was slumping. Potentially, I was moping. I'd earned a good mope, I felt. I wanted to be the bigger...zombie. I wanted to understand I wasn't the only one with problems. But to be fair, my problems were pretty huge! And they weighed on me. And I was alone. Like, really alone.

I heard the footsteps just before the door to the office opened, revealing an extremely young girl with an extreme amount of eyeliner. Which, coming from me, is something.

"You're..." she looked down at a slip of paper. "Ray-vi?"

I shook my head, trying to remove the look from my face that I could feel was unprofessional. "Me? No. It's Ravi, and _he's_ not here right now. He's out of town."

"Oh, right. I think my teacher said something about that. I'm Melinda, I'm an intern."

"An intern?" Again, with the face. Melinda didn't seem to mind. Or notice.

This could work, right?

"Yeah. It was this or restaurant prep. I thought this would be more interesting. Are we going to dissect some people? I've watched some videos. Seems pretty cool."

I nodded slowly. "Cool. Yeah, it's totally cool when people die and we have to cut them to bits to figure out why." I was trying for sarcasm, but truthfully? It _was_ cool.

My sarcasm seemed lost on her in any case. Was this the 'help' Ravi had promised me? I filed that away for later definition. Apparently that meant something different in Britain.

“Okay,” I finally said. “Step over here and lets get you outfitted for an exciting day at the morgue.”

Her smile was weaker than mine. Which, again, was saying something. 

This was going to be great.

I got her a lab coat, gloves and a face mask, and we got started. I thought for a moment about easing her in, but then I decided that if I was never going to get a resident, this would be the next best thing. And if Ravi was going to leave me alone with an intern, he'd have to shoulder the responsibility for what she could...or couldn't...handle.

“So we take the skull off like this,” I said over the saw. The blood spattered her face mask, and I took a certain amount of pleasure in the grimace. To her credit, though, she stayed standing.

I showed her how to weigh and label the organs before she left.

“Label and group them together – we need to supply them with the bodies after the autopsies. We don't want the families getting the wrong brain or liver or anything.” Or none at all, for that matter.

After she left, I avoided the body of the younger girl with the deep gashes on her left arm – deep enough that she hadn't been able to do the same to the right – and transferred the brain in the jar next to our other guest to my tupperware container. 'Working lunches' were out until Ravi was back, but a girl has to eat.

* * *

Eating brains is an odd thing. I can't say I'm really _used_ to it, but I guess I...hate it less. Sometimes it even feels like eating a meal – some heat, some flavor, some (very odd) texture...

But then it starts to hit, and suddenly, _whoo_ , Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore. It still takes a little time to get to know my new headmate - sometimes they're different enough that I can push them back pretty easily. But, honestly? Most of the time I don't try that hard.

It's made me realize why drugs have such appeal. Because respite from that constant ache of emptiness and lost opportunity is something I've come to count on.

But this brain was different - there was no respite. There was no division between her and me, no comfortable muffling of my life with hers – there was just pain. An unimaginable, yawning cavity of loneliness – all of it so deep and cutting that I felt like I was flayed open and bleeding. I knew immediately that I'd taken the wrong brain, that this pain had ended for her when this girl had taken a knife to her arm – so deeply that she couldn't do the same to the other.

How could I have let this happen? How could I have been so stupid? So useless as a doctor, as a _zombie_ that I couldn't even keep track of a brain? Or, for that matter, my friends and family. I was a failure at being a doctor, at being a sister, a daughter, a friend – I'd tried, but I was dead, right? I was already dead. I'd had my chance, and I'd screwed it up. None of it mattered now. 

It was too late for all of that. _I_ was too late.

* * *

My arms didn't bleed. I cut them repeatedly to be sure. But I was just too tired, and it hurt, and I'd have to find another way.

* * *

A muffled voice at the door. “Liv.” Ravi's voice.

For a second I had hope. If anyone could help me now, he could. But I knew that was selfish. Why was it always about me? Why did I think I was so important anyway? Liv, so damn important, she can just do whatever she wants, ruin anyone's life in the process. It had destroyed my family, Major, Peyton. I was poison, and I'd poison Ravi, too.

“Liv.”

I opened my eyes but didn't bother to sit up. “I can't come to work,” I called out. I was going to tell him I was sick, but it didn't seem worth the effort.

“Liv, let me in right this second.”

I closed my eyes.

Opened them again when I heard a key in the lock. Peyton. My best friend had given him a key before I'd driven her away. I really did ruin absolutely everything. 

Closed my eyes.

“Liv?”

He was close, now. Looking at me, probably. Almost certainly _smelling_ me. How long had it been? A day? Two? Three? They just rolled together now, the last empty frames of a film, one after the other after the other until, hopefully, they didn't anymore. I felt vaguely uncomfortable for a moment, having him see me like this. Then realized how pathetic that was. As if there weren't more important things than my discomfort. Useless. Useless and empty. That was me.

“Go 'way,” I told him finally.

"Oh, no. Not a chance. Liv, your arms..." He trailed off, but I could hear the horror.

"Didn't work," I said, by way of apology, of explanation. They were just scars, now, but they'd been quite deep.

"Oh, Liv." He didn't say anything for a long time. I could hear him swallowing, and I felt bad for a minute. But I'd tried to do what was right. I'd tried to finish the job that Blaine had started. There was nothing wrong with that. I'd _tried_ to fix it.

He finally spoke in a low voice. "I talked to Melinda, the intern. Liv, they lost a brain. They lost a brain they thought was a sweet old woman brain, but on further examination, appears to have been a suicidal _young_ woman brain, and Liv, whatever you're going through right now, whatever depth of hurt and loss and despair you feel, that is _not_ you, and I need you to fight that. I need you to come back with me, and we'll get you another meal, and you will feel so much better, I promise you."

I swatted weakly in his direction. "You don't know. You don't _know_ that." He didn't know me. He didn't know my pain and my life and the hell it had been for the past months, just getting out of bed each day. The only reason I'd had was saving lives. What a joke that had been, huh? Saving lives by putting everyone I love in danger. I would have told him how useless I was, but it didn't matter. He'd figure it out, if he hadn't already. It was really all just a lie.

“I've known you for a while now, Liv. Well, I've known you with a side of everyone you eat. But I think I have a baseline." I felt the bed sink next to me, but it just seemed like too much effort to open my eyes. Then I felt him take my hand, and I did open them, just a tiny bit. Enough to see his hand covering mine. “You're stronger than this, Liv. You've got a raw deal right now, but we'll turn it around. Liv, please.”

I pulled away, and he left his hand there, empty. “I know it feels heavy now, Liv. Hopeless. And it must be easy, because this brain ties in so completely with how hard things are for you right now. But you're here, Liv. You're here, and she's not. She couldn't find a way out, and she couldn't think of a reason to stay. But you have reasons, and you have a way.”

“What have I got?” I asked listlessly. “Honestly. What have I actually... _got_ , and why does that matter? Any of it? Ravi, I'm _dead_.”

He shook me, hard, and I looked up at him in irritation. 

“You're _not_! You're not dead, don't say that! You've got _me,_ you insufferable idiot. And dammit, I have _you_. I _had_ you. Pretty much _only_ you, you pigheaded sod, and I need you _back_.”

There was something in his voice - some deep seated pain - that made me fight my way up, through layers of how much it didn't matter, how much I'd poisoned everything I touched, how useless, how dead, how awful I really was. "Ravi. What's wrong?"

" _You!_ You... _you_...do you have any idea? I _need_ you right now."

It couldn't be me. What was I to anyone right now? Nothing. A whole lot of nothing.

Then I remembered. I'd been so stupid. So selfish. _So typical._ "No. No, not just me. Is this about your dad?"

"Later," he said, but the pain was clear on his face, in the way his hand spasmed in reaction to my statement.

I pushed my crappy life aside. I was an abomination, and I should be dead. But I wasn't, and Ravi needed me. He might be the last person on this earth who _wanted_ me here, and whatever the reason, whatever the purpose, I wanted to help him. I was a terrible excuse for a human being, but he was my friend. "Ravi, tell me."

"I got a call," he said, and his voice shook. I put my hand near his and he clutched it so firmly I thought he'd break bones. I squeezed back. I would listen. It was the least I could do. I'd failed so many people. _And I'll fail him, too. _I told the voice to shut up, and I listened to Ravi.__

"He was attacked by a patient in the E.R. It was minor - the patient was just trying to get away, so it was really just a cut. Just...just a cut. It was three days ago. Doctors were puzzled. He seemed to be experiencing an onset of albinism - first a streak in the hair, then his skin..."

He couldn't talk anymore, but I knew what had happened. "Oh, no, Ravi."

"I don't know how this happened. I thought...Liv, it's _everywhere_. I thought just here, that _Blaine_ \- but it's everywhere."

Despair swallowed me whole. It was true. Everything I'd done - there were zombies here, and in Britain, and probably everywhere else. The end was pretty much fucking _nigh_. Everything I'd tried to do, everything I'd failed to do - it had lead to this. I had done this. And just as I'd known - I'd ruined Ravi's life, too.

Ravi took a shaky breath and turned to me. "I know you feel alone, but you're the only one I can talk to about this. I can help him for now, but this _can't_ get out. It would be mass hysteria, every disaster movie... What the bloody hell are we going to do?"

 _See what you've done? See what you do? You poison things. You poison_ people. _The more you care, the more they hurt._ "Oh, shut the hell up," I said sharply.

Ravi looked at me, hurt.

"Not you," I told him. "Sorry, my..." I gestured vaguely at my head. "I need something to eat. Ravi?"

He smiled slightly. "Is that my Liv?"

"The closest we're going to get for now," I told him. Despair still clung, but I pushed it back. "Ravi. You found the cure once. You can do it again. We _will_ figure this out."

He let out a shaky breath. "I know we will. I know." He kept my hand in his as I dragged one foot over the edge of the bed. Then the other.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"Ditto," I told him.

I kept his hand in mine as we left the apartment. 

Maybe I wasn't the same person I'd been, but I was _someone_ under all this...grim, miserable brain-buzz-of-the-week. And Ravi saw that. 

For now, that was enough.


End file.
